Re: Installation problems with GRUB
Shane McDonald <mcdshane@SEDSystems.ca> writes:
> Here's my scenario. I've got a PC with two IDE hard drives.
> The first is a 13 GB drive, from which I run both Windows 98 and
> Debian GNU/Linux, the 2.1 slink release.
I have a 13 GB drive too; GNUmach and the Hurd use it just fine.
> First, I tried the command
>
> root=(hd1,0)
>
> which should be the first partition on my second hard drive
> (Linux's /dev/hdb1).
That's right. (But if you didn't have hda, hdb would be the
first hard drive and GRUB would call it hd0.)
> GRUB reported the error:
>
> Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x55
Linux shows "[EZD]" in front of the partition information when it
boots, doesn't it?
Partition type 0x55 is used by a driver which hooks the BIOS disk
interrupt and translates disk geometry so that DOS can use the
entire disk. The driver keeps your partitions inside the 0x55
partition. Linux detects the situation and uses them from there.
Apparently Linux also fools fdisk into reading and writing the
virtual MBR inside the 0x55 partition.
It seems GRUB doesn't understand the driver's partitioning
scheme. As the disk doesn't contain anything important yet, you
could erase its MBR and get rid of the driver. But since fdisk
is seeing the virtual MBR, I don't think dd from Linux would get
to the real one either.
Perhaps you could use the DOS fdisk to delete the 0x55 partition.
But if the driver is on hda too, it gets loaded before DOS and
hides itself. In that case, boot from a floppy.
Some of those drivers offer to boot from a floppy if you press
Ctrl during boot. Don't use this feature -- the driver would
get in memory. Tweak the BIOS settings instead.
> root=(hd0,0)
>
> which should have specified my first drive's DOS partition,
> and it gave the same error as my original attempt:
>
> Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x55
Well, this shows it's on hda too.
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